1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a hand held sensor for acoustic data acquisition in medical diagnosis, and more particularly, a sensor having a cursor control for a position-indicating display.
2. Description of Related Art
The traditional method of acoustic diagnosis in medicine surrounded the use of stethoscopes, in particular, for the diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. However, stethoscopes have limited functionality, both in design and implementation. The stethoscope itself transfers only a small fraction of the acoustic signal at the chest surface to the listener's ears, and filters the cardiac acoustic signal in the process.
In particular, with respect to auscultation of the heart, much of the signal energy in many heart sounds is below the threshold of human hearing. This situation is compounded by the degradation of the listener's hearing which can be associated with, for example, age and/or exposure to excessive noise. Auscultation also relies on correctly determining which of the primary heart sounds correspond with the systolic and diastolic phase of the heart, which is made more difficult when the systolic and diastolic intervals are more equal, typically at elevated heart rates. Auscultation also relies on detecting the correct sequence of brief events occurring close in time, something that is difficult for human listeners.
Learning auscultation is also difficult because diagnostic instructional manuals rely on subjective descriptions of heart sounds, which need practice to appreciate. Furthermore, following decisions by certain medical coverage providers not to reimburse for phonocardiography, the practice and teaching of the clinical skill of auscultation of the heart has declined among physicians. Recent tests have demonstrated that physicians can identify, reliably, only a small number of standard heart sounds and murmurs. Consequently, serious heart murmurs in many patients go undetected by physicians.
In addition, the decline in auscultation skills has led to an over-reliance on echocardiography, resulting in a large number of unnecessary and expensive diagnostic studies. As a result, reimbursement for echocardiography has come under scrutiny by Medicare.
Therefore, a need exists for an acoustic data acquisition device for use in medical diagnosis.